I Tried Couples Therapy at Online-Therapy.com–Here's How It Went

My romantic relationship is overall pretty healthy with respectful and open communication, but my partner and I do have one issue around health choices that he makes (regarding food and smoking) that spins me into some pretty judgmental and controlling behavior. So while we weren’t dealing with serious subjects like infidelity, substance use, or heavy mental health issues, I knew I needed to get some outside guidance.

I was looking for a company that felt welcoming and offered appointments that felt more like chatting with a wise friend over tea, not something overly clinical.  And this is where Online-Therapy.com came to the rescue—my partner and I signed up for couples therapy at the company for a month. Here’s how it went.

But First: What Is Online-Therapy.com?

Like its pretty straightforward name implies, Online-Therapy.com is a teletherapy company. It was founded in 2009 with a simple goal: To make cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) go mainstream by offering a “complete therapy toolbox where you’ll get tools and learn skills to help you and your relationship to thrive.” 

As a type of talk therapy where you learn to recognize and challenge negative thought processes and behaviors, CBT is a type of therapy that resonates with the practical optimist in me. I am not looking for a magical fix, nor do I want to feel like control of my mental health is in the hands of someone else. I want to feel empowered, accountable, and participatory in therapy, with a therapist showing me what I could actively do to work on my reactivity. 

This idea of CBT-based couples therapy was enticing, and the website itself—which was definitely non-intimidating, with words like “holistic” and “happy” sprinkled throughout—drew me in. This type of relaxed language made me feel instantly comfortable. 

That said, I do have to admit that my first reaction to the banner on the homepage—which said “Life-changing therapy and tools for a new you”—did make me internally recoil a bit. Whoa! I don’t want to change my whole life, I thought. I’m just here for a tiny bit of help on one specific issue. But then I laughed and realized that my dramatic and quick reactivity was actually something that I was looking to work on. 

So I decided to give it a go—after giving the company a quick social media background check, of course. Spoiler: While it doesn’t have a huge following (just over 1,000 followers on Instagram), the content it posted was pretty helpful, with bite-sized and easily applicable tips. A couple of examples are “Three simple boundary statements for the table at family holidays” or “Three easy ways to prioritize your partner with a busy schedule.”  

Signing Up for Couples Therapy at Online-Therapy.com

Signing up at Online-Therapy.com was surprisingly easy. In fact, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’ll probably find the beginning stages of working with Online-Therapy.com very calming and streamlined (I did). There is a bar of options on the first page with easy access to FAQs (prices are found there), reviews, and information about the company. The home page simply asked if I was looking for individual therapy or couples therapy. 

When I chose “couples,” it gave me a bunch of boxes to choose from for areas in which I was experiencing difficulties, such as infertility, domestic violence, panic attacks, anger management, or insomnia. 

I chose “health anxiety,” which seemed a little weird because it was not my health that I was anxious about, but I figured I could explain myself in detail with the therapist later. 

Then it asked if I was in a straight or gay/lesbian relationship. While I am in a straight relationship, this seemed rather limiting for many couples that I know who don’t conform to such a small spectrum of possibilities and titles. The website then asked if I preferred a male or female therapist, how I would prefer my live sessions (video, voice, or messaging chat), and how I found out about the company. I was then asked to create an account.

I would have preferred to be asked other filtering questions about the kind of therapist that I wanted—for some people, race or sexual identity could be a big factor for who they preferred to open up to. While the imagery used on the website is definitely lacking in diversity, I noticed the small photos of the therapists available featured providers of different backgrounds.

That said, since I am not insured for therapy, that was not a determining factor for me—but 5% of the 105 Online-Therapy.com users we surveyed about their experiences said that they left the company because they found a therapist somewhere else who accepted their insurance, and 26% said specifically that they wished Online-Therapy.com accepted insurance, which was something they thought other companies they’d tried did better than this one.

The couples therapy plan includes a weekly live session together with a therapist plus unlimited messaging, so my partner and I could message the therapist with whatever was on our minds and get a reply within 24 hours Monday through Friday.

Therapist Matching

After signing up, I discovered that the company does not let you choose your own therapist; instead it picks one for you. I got an email from the therapist once the match was made—and this email instructed me to then log onto the site, pay for my subscription, and make the first appointment.  

Up to this point, I felt like the vibe had been so calm and curated, but now I had a therapist that I did not choose telling me to pay. I felt a bit pressured to move the process along with no opportunity to find out more about who I would be working with. 

Still, I went into my account on the site, paid (there is only one monthly plan available for couples) and scheduled my first appointment, which disappointingly I discovered couldn’t be scheduled quickly. The first available session was about two weeks out, and even then, I didn’t have many time slot options (most were mid-day). 

Given that my personal situation was not exactly an emergency, this was fine, but for many people, having to wait two weeks might be a much bigger deal. Honestly, I also would have appreciated the option to see other therapists’ schedules to be able to book something sooner, or even be able to figure out if the delay was unique to just the therapist chosen for me.

Once I paid, I was asked to complete a brief intake “Getting to Know You” worksheet. I completed mine, but my partner did not complete his. It didn’t seem mandatory to fill out prior to the session, and our therapist did not ask him about it in our first session. 

A few days later, as I was perusing the Online-Therapy.com site, I was able to find detailed bios for the therapists and I admit, I felt better: my therapist was very professionally qualified and experienced; it just would have been nice to know this right away.  

How Does Therapy Work at Online-Therapy.com?

Worksheets and Homework

Online-Therapy.com is very big on homework outside of your sessions (this is a tenet of CBT), so before my first session, I was given a number of worksheets to fill out and receive feedback on, as well as access to journaling options, activity plans, and yoga videos. 

While some people might like this, I personally felt overwhelmed with the quantity of worksheets. I just wanted to talk to a therapist, not feel like a kid in school who was drowning in homework they didn’t feel like doing and have the first interaction with the “teacher” (i.e. my therapist) be for them to tell me I didn’t do what I was supposed to. 

For this homework, there are eight sections, and each section has multiple worksheets. Section one was straightforward enough and just asked me to read about what CBT is and how it works. But section two, “Looking into Anxiety,” came in hard with “Take time to think about and write down everything that’s not right in your life right now.” Um, everything?  

That daunting task only added to my anxiety. 

And by the time I got to section three calling me out on every single detail of my “Problematic Behavior,” I honestly felt like a mess and like I had much more internal work to do than I expected, and I still couldn’t get in front of my therapist for two more weeks to address any of it. 

But once the video session actually began, I was very satisfied. 

Video Sessions

The day before and the day of our session, we received two helpful reminders that we had a session coming up. The email did not invite me to download anything (like an app), but it did give my partner the choice to log on together or separately from different devices—which would be a nice option if we happened to be in different locations. 

Neither of us had any technical difficulties logging into the 45-minute session, which takes place through a video call service on the Online-Therapy.com website. 

She made a big point of allowing both of us space to talk and offer our individual perspectives, and I appreciated that she took the time to get insight into my partner’s culture (he is Moroccan) to have a better understanding of that in relation to the issue we were working on. She was able to ask us deep questions, but those questions also never felt intrusive. And by the end of the session, both of us felt hopeful that we could work together as a team to resolve the issue at hand and come out stronger. 

At the end of the first session, she also asked us point blank if we felt we wanted to continue working with her or if we preferred that she help us find a different therapist. While some clients may feel put on the spot with that, she handled it in a way that made me believe that she really was most interested in our well-being and what we felt was best for us, and that she would handle it with full grace if we chose to switch. We both agreed that we were more than happy to continue working with her and scheduled our next appointment for a week out. 

While our first appointment was a success, our second one was disappointing. 

My partner and I were both in the platform and on the call punctually, excited to continue therapy.  We both lead very busy lives and had arranged our day to prioritize this appointment. After 15 minutes of our therapist being a no-show, we double- and triple-checked the appointment time and finally messaged her asking to please communicate. After another 10 minutes or so she messaged us saying that she had connectivity complications and we could reschedule for a couple of days out. 

During our first appointment we had explained that we would be traveling and mostly offline for a couple of weeks, and communicated that we needed to schedule our second appointment before that (what she was proposing was when we would already be on the road). I felt that if there was enough connectivity to respond to our message, there could have been enough to offer to finish the appointment over text even if we could not over video. She could have even just done a quick written check-in to see how we were doing since the last appointment... but she didn’t. However, a bit after she did message to ask for our cell phone numbers to communicate better if that were to happen again (which I appreciated, although I would have thought she could have accessed that info from our intake form at sign-up). 

Pros & Cons

I was pleased and impressed with the level of care I received through Online-Therapy.com in our first session, but disappointed in our second. Here are some highlights and low points about my experience.

Final Thoughts

After our first session, I was so happy with the service, but that opinion quickly plummeted with how the second no-show appointment was handled. 

While I did not like not having a say in which therapist we worked with, the therapist we were matched with ended up being a great fit and had a skillset and personality well-suited for our needs. The type of session we experienced is very much in line with what the website advertised, with the vibe coming across as much more warm and holistic than cold and clinical. I was not impressed with how she handled the no-show, but I felt comfortable addressing that directly with her when we met up again. 

From my limited experience, I am not sure that this company would be the best choice for couples dealing with severe trauma, emotional abuse, or domestic violence issues—in fact, couples therapy is not recommended for people experiencing domestic violence. But for self-motivated couples whose relationship just needs some support and a little guidance, the Online-Therapy.com model seems to me to be a good route to go.